Months of therapy await soldier

Dustin Hill's days are filled with grueling hours of therapy as he learns how to walk again and master the electronic prosthesis that is now his right hand.Hill is a bilateral amputee, losing both hands as result of third-degree burns he sustained on about a third of his body when a car bomb exploded behind the Humvee he was in while stationed in Iraq. The 22-year-old generator mechanic with Galva-based Battery F, 1st Battalion, 202nd Air Defense Artillery of the Illinois National Guard also lost his right eye in the blast.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Blog by Amputee

Back in Iraq, Iowan injured a second time

By ABBY SIMONSREGISTER STAFF WRITERJanuary 28, 2005 After being shot in the face in June, Sgt. 1st Class Brent Jurgersen of Clinton County insisted on returning to Iraq four months later, telling relatives he wanted to bring the soldiers under his command back home.

Now those family members are praying for him again. Jurgersen, 42, was critically injured for a second time when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the Humvee in which he was riding Wednesday in Duluiya. Another U.S. soldier was killed in the attack.

Amputee Equipment Getting Patients Back Faster (Contains Video)

1/26/05- It's new technology that's allowing amputees to get back on their feet faster and live amazingly mobile lives. John Fernandez is getting new equipment to go skiing, b ut it's much more than boots and bindings, he also needs new prostheticfeet and braces. Two years ago the West Point graduate was sent into Iraq. O ne night as he slept, an American bomb was mistakenly dropped nearhis unit.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Gaylord grad seriously hurt in Iraq

Derrick Harden, 19, was hurt by a land mine. JOHANNESBURG - A local family is in the nation's capital, at the bedside of their son who was critically wounded in Iraq. Army Pfc. Derrick Harden, 19, a 2003 graduate of Gaylord High School, was badly hurt last week when the Humvee his unit traveled in drove over a land mine while responding to another bomb explosion in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The blast broke Harden's arms and legs, and shrapnel caused serious injury to his face in several places. His right leg was amputated below the knee. Deb Murray, Harden's mother, said her son awoke Monday from a weeklong coma and is breathing without assistance in the intensive care unit at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Marine has Red, White and Blue Ball

Reuters Janna Dunkel of Sugar Land wipes away tears as her son, Marine Cpl. Casey Owens of Houston, salutes during President Bush's inauguration speech. WASHINGTON - The last thing Marine Cpl. Casey Owens remembers of Iraq, he was riding in a Humvee somewhere near the Syrian border, looking for a wounded soldier. An anti-tank mine exploded before Owens could find him.

Three weeks later, the 23-year-old from Houston woke up at the Bethesda Naval hospital outside Washington with more than 200 shrapnel wounds, a broken jaw and a broken collarbone.

Numbers Update: 220 amputees

While most of the 1,348 combat soldiers treated at Brooke Army since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began have been burn cases, the medical center based at Fort Sam Houston has also cared for 27 amputees. Officials expect that number to jump to 84 by April.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center has long been the primary evacuation stop for wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. It's treated 186 troops wounded in Iraq and 21 wounded in Afghanistan through its amputee care center, which opened late last year.

About 220 soldiers have lost at least one limb as a result of service in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department.
[source]

WINDHAM GIVING WAR AMPUTEES THRILLS ON HILL

INJURED soldiers return ing from Iraq and Afghanistan will have an opportunity to learn that their injuries will not prevent them from enjoying winter sports such as skiing.

The Adaptive Sports Foundation at Windham Mountain in the Catskills will be hosting a three-day event for eight U.S. soldiers injured during their recent tours. These soldiers are amputees as a result of their injuries and are in rehabilitation programs at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Diabled Support System (ArmyDS3.org)

On April 30, 2004, the Department of the Army introduced a Disabled Soldier Support System (DS3) Initiative that provides its severely disabled Soldiers and their families with a system of advocacy and follow-up with personal support to assist them as they transition from military service to the civilian community.

The DS3 incorporates and integrates several existing programs to provide holistic support services for our severely disabled Soldiers and their families throughout their phased progression from initial casualty notification to their return to home station and home destination. In addition, DS3 is a system to track and monitor our severely disabled Soldiers for a period of time beyond their medical retirement in order to provide appropriate assistance through an array of existing service providers.

DS3 serves as the advocate for the Army’s severely disabled Soldiers and their families. DS3 facilitates communication and coordination between severely disabled Soldiers and their families and the pertinent local, Federal and national agencies and organizations, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs and the many commendable Veteran’s Service Organizations, in much the same way Soldiers use their chain of command to resolve issues.

Key elements of the DS3 include providing a network of resources not limited to Army installations or component, be it active or reserve, to ensure responsiveness and availability of support services. Although DS3 is centrally managed at Department of the Army Headquarters, there are designated regional DS3 Coordinators that will interface on behalf of the Soldiers and families with the local and regional resources.

The benefits of those enrolled are tremendous. Severely disabled Soldiers and families are able to better understand what their future holds and how to access services they may require through the assistance of a dedicated advocate.

The Army’s goal for DS3 is for it to work in concert with other key organizations to ensure that our disabled Soldiers and families are give the care, support and assistance they so rightly deserve for their selfless service and sacrifice to our nation.

Amputee Care Center to Open in Texas

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2005 — The Defense Department's second amputee care center is slated to open Jan. 14 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to provide state-of-the- art care for servicemembers who have lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new center at Brooke Army Medical Center will incorporate a full range of amputee patient care at one site. This includes orthopedics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, occupational therapy, physical therapy and prosthetics, as well as social work and Veterans Affairs counselors.

Officials said the new facility will help return patients to "the highest level of activity," while providing an opportunity to research advances in rehabilitation and prosthetic design with all amputee patients.

Army Brig. Gen. C. William Fox Jr., the hospital commander, said the goal is to provide "provide unprecedented levels of care that are the best that can be found anywhere," and to help recovering soldiers ultimately return to duty if they wish to do so.

The new facility will expand the services already offered at Brooke, the Army's only Level 1 trauma center and the Defense Department's only burn center.

The Defense Department's first amputee care center opened at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center in early 2004. Since then, 186 troops wounded in Iraq and 21 wounded in Afghanistan have received treatment there, as well as a small number of other patients not involved in the war on terror, according to center public affairs officer Bill Swisher.

A new amputee training center is expected to open at Walter Reed in December. Military officials broke ground for the new facility Nov. 19.

Once completed, the new 29,000-square-foot center will offer a full range of patient-care services. It also will include features officials say are aimed at "returning patients to a tactical level of athleticism," such as a running track, bicycles, treadmills, elliptical trainers, climbing and rappelling wall, platforms for patients to practice balance and coordination skills, and a lab for analyzing patients' gaits while wearing prosthetics.

Amputee Center to Open at Fort Sam Houston

The Defense Department’s second amputee care center is scheduled to open Friday at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio to provide care for service members who have lost limbs in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The center at Brooke Army Medical Center will integrate a wide range of amputee care at a single site including rehabilitation and occupational therapy, the military said.

IU to research rehabilitation needs of war amputees

A researcher holds a piece of OASIS, a material which is applied to hard-to-heal wounds. OASIS is an Indiana product that is likely to have significant benefit for the rehabilitation of traumatic amputees.
Print-Quality Photo
NOTE: This story is one of several to be published this week in celebration of IU Life Sciences Week (Jan. 22-28).

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Center for Rehabilitation Sciences & Engineering Research, located on the campus of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, is receiving $1 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to study the rehabilitation needs of severely wounded military personnel who are returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The center will leverage the federal appropriation, championed by U.S. Congresswoman Julia Carson, to develop a research agenda for establishing models of best rehabilitation practices for traumatic amputees in Indiana and nationally. The goal of the research will be to optimize rehabilitation, independence and quality of life for veterans who suffer the loss of a limb in combat. The Ohio State University is a collaborating partner in this research.

"The Indiana Center for Rehabilitation Sciences & Engineering Research is ideally suited to take a leadership role because of its powerful partnerships that cut across many areas of science, engineering, technology, medical and rehabilitative care," said Mark Sothmann, dean of the Indiana University School of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, where the center administratively resides. Center partners include seven IUPUI schools, the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana, the Richard L. Roudebush Veterans Administration Medical Center and Indiana corporate partners.

American combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in an increasing number of traumatic amputees among U.S. military personnel. Current protective gear and improvements in field medicine mean more soldiers survive injuries that would have proved fatal in prior wars but now result in severe wounds, often requiring amputation.

These individuals face a daunting future of rehabilitation and reintegration into daily American life.

The center will provide national leadership on a research agenda to address these issues by bringing together national experts representing medical management, prosthetic design, engineering needs, health services, rehabilitation and long-term health maintenance. Their collective goal will be to define a research agenda to optimize amputee function, independence and quality of life.

"The center will use coordinated and systematic efforts to identify and assess gaps in current quality and outcomes of rehabilitation in order to develop optimal clinical practice that enhances the quality and outcomes of rehabilitation for military and veteran amputees," Sothmann said. "The research establishing rehabilitation best practices with amputees will be applicable to optimizing rehabilitation for return to work and quality of life following joint replacement, which is a central life sciences industry in Indiana."

An Indiana life-sciences product will likely have an important role in this effort. OASIS® Wound Matrix, manufactured by Cook Biotech, a West Lafayette, Ind., subsidiary of Cook Group and a corporate partner in the center, is a revolutionary material used to manage hard-to-heal wounds.

OASIS provides a scaffold for human cells to use as they replace and repair damaged tissue, resulting in the natural growth of new human tissue. This technology provides a "jump start" for repair of chronic wounds. A large percentage of traumatic amputees have additional body wounds that limit their ability to undergo rehabilitation, and OASIS may enhance the healing process to allow for more effective rehabilitation intervention.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Armored vehicle saved National Guardsman

Army National Guardsman Dale Beatty of Statesville patrolled near his base in northern Iraq for eight months waiting for a fully armored vehicle.

The day after one arrived, it saved his life but not his legs.

Without the Humvee's armored floors, Beatty thinks, he would have died when his unit drove over anti-tank mines two months ago.

Beatty is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, now and for many months. He is one of 10,372 U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq who must recarve their lives.

He is 26 and not bitter.

"I'm not angry, because I still have my life," he said in a phone interview from his family's lodgings at the medical complex. "I'm still alive. I'm with my family, my boys and my wife, so I'm thankful, you know?"

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Want to Help?

To contribute to Beatty's house fund, call the Rev. David Comer at the Monticello UMC office, (704) 924-8322. To write Beatty, send mail to him at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Fisher House 2, 6900 Georgia Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20307.

Armored vehicle saved National Guardsman (photo included)

Armored vehicle saved National Guardsman'For some reason, I knew I was going to be OK'
KATHRYN WELLIN
Staff Writer
Army National Guardsman Dale Beatty of Statesville patrolled near his base in northern Iraq for eight months waiting for a fully armored vehicle.

The day after one arrived, it saved his life but not his legs.

Without the Humvee's armored floors, Beatty thinks, he would have died when his unit drove over anti-tank mines two months ago.

Beatty is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, now and for many months. He is one of 10,372 U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq who must recarve their lives.

He is 26 and not bitter.

"I'm not angry, because I still have my life," he said in a phone interview from his family's lodgings at the medical complex. "I'm still alive. I'm with my family, my boys and my wife, so I'm thankful, you know?"

On Thursday, he received prosthetic legs, and the Army will help him find a job, if he doesn't return to managing the Statesville Armory.

His church is raising money to build him and his family a house. Before he deployed, they lived in a rented trailer.

In life, stuff happens, he said, and you have to deal with it the best you can.

"Hopefully, it will make me a better person," he said.

November 15

Beatty's unit -- Detachment 1, Battery C, 1st Battalion, 113th Field Artillery -- is stationed at a base between Mosul and Tikrit. The unit's job is befriending the locals and patrolling the area.About 90 percent of the people Beatty met were friendly, mostly nomadic sheep herders who invited soldiers to share food and tea even though they had little.

Still, the soldiers wished they had more vehicles manufactured with armor, instead of those with armor added later piecemeal, to parts other than the floor.

On Nov. 15, Beatty and members of his group were riding in their vehicle when two anti-tank mines detonated through the Humvee's floor on Beatty's side. The Humvee flew 25 meters up the road. The next thing Beatty remembers was waking up next to the vehicle, his legs covered with debris.

It hurt and he could only see out of one eye, but he joked around with the guys. Beatty credits unit mate Ryan Pennington, an EMT from Kings Mountain, with stopping the bleeding enough to save his life.

"I asked God to let me see my boys again, and that's all I wanted," he said. "For some reason, I knew I was going to be OK."

At a hospital in Iraq, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. He arrived Nov. 19 at Walter Reed, where doctors said the long-term outlook for keeping the lower part of his left leg was not good. Beatty told them to take it.

"I was missing things that you need to walk," he explained.

Beatty joined the Guard as a reservist the year he graduated West Iredell High. His grandfathers, great-uncles and uncle had served in the military; his father even served in the same Guard unit.

Beatty figured the Army was good for a "young, unguided soul" such as himself. He was working various jobs -- carpentry, restaurants.

In 2001, he married a high school acquaintance, Belinda Summers. Two years later, he became an active guardsman manning the Statesville Armory. The steady paycheck was a life-saver, especially when a son, Dustin, now 2 1/2, was born.

He had thought about college, but it was expensive, and anyway, he didn't know what he wanted to study. "I just chose to take a different path and see where it turned out," he said.

Last month, President Bush personally presented Beatty with the Purple Heart and promoted him from sergeant to staff sergeant.

`I'm still who I was before'

Beatty doesn't wish he were back in Iraq, but he is not sorry he went.

Somebody needed to help the Iraqis, he said, but he doubts the country will become a democracy unless Iraqis start working for it themselves.

His wounds are no one's fault except the person who planted the mines, he said.

"Of course I'm angry, but it's not going to do me any good to sit here and be bitter about it," he said.

Things could be worse. At Walter Reed, he sees soldiers missing all their limbs, others who remain in comas.

"I'm awake, I'm still who I was before," he said. "I'm able to function in a fairly normal manner. I can dress myself. I can feed myself. I can bathe myself pretty much."

At Walter Reed, he lives in a house for patients with Belinda, Dustin, and Lucas, 7 months. He savors the chance to "get back in their lives" after nearly a year away.

When Belinda Beatty heard about her husband's injuries, she wondered if Dale would take it hard and how she would handle that.

Instead, his attitude is helping her deal with the situation, she said. A drummer in a local Southern rock band, Beatty plans to teach himself to control the drum pedals with his prosthetic ankles. He kids her that she is finally taller.

"He accepted that this is what happened and this is how it's going to be for the rest of his life," she said.

Asking for pity won't make him or anyone else feel better, he said.

One night, he broke down in tears, overwhelmed by the support and good wishes from people from home, from across the country and from his church, Monticello United Methodist in Statesville.

When he first arrived at Walter Reed, all he could do was sit in his hospital bed and read letters, from people he knew and those he didn't.

He could not believe how many people would take the time to write someone they had never met.

"How much good can come out of people is just amazing," he said.

Want to Help?

To contribute to Beatty's house fund, call the Rev. David Comer at the Monticello UMC office, (704) 924-8322. To write Beatty, send mail to him at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Fisher House 2, 6900 Georgia Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20307.

Iraq war veteran eager to help others with disorder

LAWRENCE - It has been two months since Jared Myers awoke in his Lawrence apartment and realized he was a mental wreck."I was having trouble functioning as a normal human being," the 24-year-old Army Reserve sergeant said. "Basically, I crashed."

Myers' mother, Judy Smith, said she won't forget the disturbing phone call she got from her son that day.

"He had an emotional breakdown," Smith said. "When he contacted me he wasn't even able to articulate."

War Vets Push For Affordable Insurance

After losing a limb, mobility or eyesight to bullets or bombs in Iraq, some of the most gravely wounded U.S. soldiers face financial devastation.

Now, a young Army Sergeant moved by the plight of fellow amputees is seeking creation of a federal insurance law to provide timely help to the war's future wounded.

After Ryan Kelly's lower right leg was blown off in an ambush near Baghdad 18 months ago, he joined the steady stream of maimed soldiers going through Walter Reed Army Medical Center's eminent Ward 57 in Washington.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Technology, Media, and Disability

Last month, MIT announced that MIT professor Hugh Herr, and colleagues from Brown University and the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center have begun a five-year multidisciplinary research project to restore arm and leg function to amputees by creating “biohybrid“ limbs. These new limbs will use regenerated tissue, lengthened bone, titanium prosthetics and implantable sensors that allow an amputee to use nerves and brain signals to move the arm or leg.

Herr, who is director of the Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group and his colleagues will focus on creating active knees and ankles which will be controlled by an amputee's own nervous system using the BION (TM), a wireless microchip about the size of a grain of rice.

This story fascinates me both as a student and as a disabled person with prosthetics of my own. One of my areas of focus in discussing disability and technology is how it reflects our own social attitudes about what each of us is able to do, and how we all use prosthetic devices every day to increase our abilities. Most people don't think of their everyday technologies such as contact lenses and PDAs as prosthetic devices, but the basic definition of a prosthetic as a manufactured device which fulfills the function of a biological body part is applicable. People adopt the technology and then adapt it for their own personal use until the fact of that use becomes invisible, unacknowledged and uncommented upon.

At least, this last is true until some event--a change in visual acuity, a crash of the PDA's OS--which forces the user to become aware of how much he or she relies upon the device. Without the prosthetic, everyday tasks become much more difficult and frustrating, and suddenly there is this feeling of...disability.

This whole idea of ability and disability as it connects to technology is my main obsession, particularly when it also intersects with media images of disability. Perhaps one of the most fascinating stories along this line has been that of Gary Trudeau's comic strip, “Doonesbury,“ and its character B.D. Over the past year, B.D.'s experiences as a newly-disabled veteran of the war in Iraq has provoked a lot of response about the everyday trials and tribulations of people with disabilities.

Starting off with a bang back in April when a number of newspapers, including the Boston Globe, decided to not run the strip which revealed B.D.'s initial reaction to waking up in the hospital and realizing he had lost a leg (he skipped the denial phase and proceeded right to swearing), and continuing with his confrontations with the always-cheerful counselors and the frustrations of making his home accessible, the comic strip has resulted in a new awareness of what disability and ability can mean.

As mentioned in an article which followed the announcement of the MIT research project, “CARING FOR THE WOUNDED: Doctors cite need for prosthetics as more lives saved,“ which appeared in the December 9, 2004 issue of The Boston Globe “US troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck injuries that may require a lifetime of care...“

It is the US Department of Veterans Affairs, responding to this increased need for improved prosthetics, which is helping to fund the $7.2 million research program which scientists at MIT and Brown will be working on.

According to the Boston Globe article, the data on the injuries and amputations among U.S. troops, which was compiled by the US Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill, states that “6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.“

The Globe article also contains an intriguing quote from Dr. Roy Aaron, one of the Brown University Medical School doctors who will be working on the research project: “'Amputee research has never been a high priority because it's not... fashionable,' said Aaron. 'Iraq has changed that.'“

It's an intriguing quote because it implies that it is possible for disability to be perceived in terms of being “fashionable.“ Though it may seem a somewhat dubious word choice at first, there is a sense that “fashionable“ can be used to mean “aware“ or “accepted,“ and in this regard the images we see and read about in regard to disability can seriously affect not only social attitudes about disability but the appropriation of funding for research which produces technology intended to increase the abilities of people with disabilities.

For this reason, I've been really curious about what Doonesbury readers have to say about their perceptions of how B.D.'s life has been altered by his new disability. Here is my favorite quote, from the Doonesbury web site
http://www.doonesbury.com

“Yep -- B.D. can rock climb. The Christmas Day strip where his daughter optimistically gives him a pair of rock-climbing shoes brought back a vivid picture
of a rock-climber at Taylor's Falls, MN. He had half a leg, and a prosthesis, and climbing shoes on both “feet.“ And he could outclimb most of us.“

As both new media images and new technologies change the definitions of what disability means, it will become increasingly difficult to make assumptions about what someone can or cannot do based on a disability. While this particular example of the influence technology and media have upon each other is from within the context of war veterans and prosthetics, the results of both the research and the media images which will come after will continue to be adopted and adapted for many purposes as yet unthought of.

Boulder Marine Remains 'A Rock' After Amputated Legs

BOULDER, Colo. -- Courageous and independent -- that's how Brad Morgan would have described his son before he was redeployed to Iraq last August. And it's still how he describes the 21-year-old Marine who was severely injured in combat on New Year's Day.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Injuries compared to other wars

At least as many U.S. soldiers have been injured in combat in this war as in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, or the first five years of the Vietnam conflict, from 1961 through 1965. This can no longer be described as a small or contained conflict. But a far larger proportion of soldiers are surviving their injuries.
New England Journal of Medicine

Amputee Count still being quoted at 199-200

January 7, 2005By late December, 199 members of the US military fighting in Iraq had lost limbs, and the percentage of wounded troops requiring amputations is double the rate during US wars in the last century. [source]

December 1stAccording to U.S. Defense Department statistics, the more than 200 war amputees include 47 who have undergone below-the-knee surgery, 37 who have undergone above the knee surgery, and at least 14 who have lost portions of both their legs. [source]

VA Funds Leading-Edge Limb-Loss Research in Providence

The Department of Veteran’s Affairs has awarded $7.2 million to the Providence VA Medical Center to establish a broad-based research program to restore natural function to amputees. The chief goal is to create “biohybrid” limbs that meld human tissue with a prosthesis controlled by an amputee’s own muscles and brain signals. The Providence VA Medical Center is working with Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to improve the lives of amputees, particularly Iraq war veterans. (See also fact sheet on individual research projects.)

Amputee Funding

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has selected a Providence-based research consortium for a $7.2-million effort to create lifelike limbs for Iraq war amputees -- by melding live tissue with mechanical devices.
In addition to the $7.2 million, the VA has committed $6 million to build a rehabilitation research center at its Providence hospital, making Providence the 14th such center in the VA system.
[source]

Besides treadmills and stationary bikes, the $10 million Military Amputee Training Center will have weapons simulators, a climbing and rappelling wall and military vehicle simulators to help soldiers adapt their prosthetics to driving tanks and trucks. [source]

Technology serving new war amputees (photo)

TYNGSBOROUGH -- Sometimes while lounging on his couch, 21-year-old Matthew Boisvert feels a sharp pain in his right foot, as if "someone is driving a stake through it," he said.

He laughed at the absurdity of it, saying, "I have no right foot!"

Boisvert's right leg was amputated at the knee in August, days after the young Marine barreled his Humvee into a booby-trap in Fallujah. By late December, 199 members of the US military fighting in Iraq had lost limbs, and the percentage of wounded troops requiring amputations is double the rate during US wars in the last century.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Amputee Takes Heroism To New Level

(CBS) Marlon Shirley claimed the title of fastest amputee in the world again this past summer at the Paralympic Games in Athens.

"It decides," he told The Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman, "who's the fastest in the world. And it's a title that I've held for the last four years. So, I've learned so well to live with it.

Monday, January 03, 2005

INJURED IN IRAQ, THREE KENTUCKIANS COME HOME TO DIFFERENT LIVES AND DIFFICULT RECOVERIES

Staff sergeant looking forward to life's next step with new legsPADUCAH - Just after 10 on a frigid December morning, a slender young man slowly enters the offices at Purchase Area Physical Therapy, walking a little awkwardly, balancing himself with a cane in either hand.

You could mistake him for just another therapy patient -- until you notice how his trousers flop loosely around the slender metal rods where his lower legs used to be.

One soldier's survival story (photo)

By John Boyle, Senior WriterJan. 3, 2005 6:57 p.m.The roadside bomb ripped through the Humvee and the soldiers riding inside, tearing flesh from the bone and pelting them with hundreds of bits of shrapnel.

Jonathan Pruden, a lieutenant at the time and a former emergency medical technician, saw one of his feet dangling by a flap of skin. He knew he'd been hit bad and called for a tourniquet immediately.

Today, nearly 18 months after that attack in Baghdad, Pruden knows just how lucky he is - despite 16 surgeries, constant pain and injuries that still leave him unable to walk.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Heroes helping heroes

A few weeks before Christmas, I had the opportunity to again visit some of America's finest young men and women who were wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom. These young warriors were recuperating in two of the country's finest medical institutions: the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.